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City's best on display at tour

By Robert Mills, rmills@lowellsun.com

Updated:
04/29/2013 06:34:56 AM EDT

LOWELL -- Mary Bedell, of Newbury, has been hearing for years now that she should visit Lowell to see the changes in this city that was once so down on its luck, so she signed up for a bus tour offered by the Greater Lowell Community Foundation on Saturday.

Bedell was not let down.

"It's just so impressive," she said in the lobby of the Merrimack Repertory Theater, where the tour concluded. "There's an energy with everyone we spoke to."

Bedell was one of about 30 people who took the tour.

The Greater Lowell Community Foundation works to connect local nonprofit organizations to the donors that help keep them alive, and Winship said the organization also seeks to connect donors to organizations that may interest them.

Saturday's bus tour included stops at the Whistler House, UMass Lowell, the Western Avenue studios and a walk up the Concord River Greenway, according to LZ Nunn, who led the tour.

Bedell said she expected to see good things at UMass Lowell, but she was delighted to tour the live-work artist spaces in the Western Avenue Artists Lofts -- her daughter is an artist -- and to see the diversity everywhere in the city.

She noted that Lowell High School officials said 20 percent of their student population is Cambodian.

"That's what we should be about in America," Bedell said.

Jim Reichheld, of Concord, works in Lowell sometimes, but said he remains impressed by the degree to which diversity is present across the city, and by the way the city has used historical building.

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He cited LeLacheur Park right in the middle of renovated mills, the historically appropriate ways old mills have been preserved and renovated, and the presence of a national park not just in the city, but completely intertwined with downtown.

"Talk about a melting pot," he said.

Carl Burke, of Brookline, said he has long known about Lowell's industrial history, but was surprised by just how much progress has been made.

"I didn't realize Lowell had so many assets," Burke said. "It's a city with a lot of momentum."

Susan Winship started her job as development director for the Greater Lowell Community Foundation about six months ago, and quickly thought of a bus tour as a way to show others what she found here.

"I was instantly like, 'this place is so cool,' " Winship said. "And you only saw part of it. There are even more museums and more public space."

Ray Riddick, executive director of the community foundation, said the organization hopes the bus tour will become an annual event.

"This is really our attempt to get more people involved in the city, which is really going through a renaissance now," Winship said.

The city got glowing reviews from those who took the tour, but is there anything the city could do even better?

Karen Keane, of Lincoln, like several people who were interviewed, said she was fascinated by the diversity of the city, and the diversity of the people and organizations that work together to make the city what it is.

She visited Lowell 15 years ago and saw the beginning of the transformation. Keane said there was "a buzz" about Lowell back then, but she had to wonder who would fill the spaces being created inside renovated mills.

Back on Saturday, Keane's questions were answered, and she was impressed.

Keane suggested the city could do more to tout the diversity, and to advertise about areas like Little Cambodia, where that diversity is on full display.

Keane also said a great restaurant can be as much of a draw as a theater or a museum. She said she was curious about the restaurants in Lowell, and said perhaps the city could do more to play up the good restaurants in town.

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